In many conventional manufacturing facilities, products are manufactured on assembly lines. Typically, to avoid confusion and for better efficiency, each assembly line is utilized to manufacture a single product and may be either automated or manual, or a combination of the two.
Before processing a product, necessary information and parts are usually gathered for preparation of the assembly line. By way of example, a list may be compiled specifying the parts, e.g., electrical components, housings, labels, etc., which are to be assembled to form the product. Additionally, a set of instructions may be prepared which summarizes the assembly steps and instructions for performing the various steps. For instance, in a soldering process, parts to be soldered to a printed circuit board might be listed by part number, color, or shape. If instructions are included, the instructions might call for a particular part to be soldered in a specific orientation. Relevant information is then furnished to human operators, for manual assembly processes, or automated equipment, for automated assembly processes.
Typically, information relevant to the processing of a product is stored in a computing device, referred to as a line controller, which controls a single assembly line. This processing information, which might be a parts listing and instructions, is programmed into the line controller and subsequently furnished by the line controller to human operators and/or automated equipment, depending on the type of assembly line. If the assembly line thereafter processes a different product, processing information corresponding to the different product must be gathered and manually programmed into the line controller for the assembly line. Therefore, when more than one product is to be processed on a single assembly line, time is wasted during which processing information must be manually programmed into the line controller. This results in higher manufacturing costs, which are usually passed on to the consumer as higher product costs.
Thus, what is needed is an improved method for processing more than one product on a single assembly line. Additionally, the method should not necessitate the manual reprogramming of a line controller controlling the assembly line.